Catherine Mortensen Custom Shopper & Tour Operator.

Archive for September, 2011:

s I start my workday in Istanbul, Turkey heading out to find carpets and textiles for various clients my day often starts on the Bosphorus. I have become expert in being able to time my walk from the flat to the ferry dock. I have daily ‘tour’ that I start each day with and also end each working day with as I catch the ferry from Asia in the morning to Europe and return each evening from the Old City on the European shore to Asia.

step onto a Caucasian carpet as I put my foot into the hallway of a Greek Revival home around the corner from Inman Square in Cambridge, Mass. The tree-lined street is home to houses that date to the middle of the 19th century and I am at the historical heart of America. As a Canadian child I learned of Paul Revere’s famous ride, the Boston tea party and as always I am so engaged to be in a historical location that I have only encountered previously in books and images.

ow is it that a woman in mid life steps off the solid ground of the predicable and known in Canada and leaps into a pile of carpets and textiles (or make that zillions of piles) in Istanbul, Turkey? This is my story.